By Danny Sullivan, Editor
SearchEngineWatch.com
Page updated: Oct. 26, 2001
Search engines have a variety of ways for you to refine and control your searches. Some of them offer menu systems for this. Others require you to use special commands as part of your query.
For most people, the basic commands covered on the Search Engine Math page will be sufficient. I encourage you to read the math page first. Get comfortable using the commands that are described. If you need more power after that, then review the other options on this page.
Boolean commands are NOT shown on this page. See the separate Boolean Searching page for information about these. If you don't know what Boolean commands are, don't worry about reading the page on these commands. You probably don't need them.
Not every power searching command is shown on this page, only the main ones that are most likely to be used. Read the help files at each search engine for more detailed coverage about what they offer.
Match Any
Sometimes you want pages that contain any of your search terms. For example, you may want to find pages that say either Ireland or Eire. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines will do this type of search by default, without you needing to specify any commands.
At some search engines, you can do a Match Any search by using a menu next to the search box or on the advanced search page. The Search Features Chart lists where this is possible.
Keep in mind that most search engines will automatically first list pages that have all your terms, then some of your terms, when you perform a Match Any search.
Some search engine specific notes are below:
AltaVista
At AltaVista, testing shows that Match Any is most likely what will happen in response to a default search. Earlier in 2001, AltaVista had said that Match Any would only occur if you searched for five words or more. This no longer seems to be the case. The article below explains what AltaVista previously said would happen:
Match All
This is a search for pages containing all of your search terms, rather than any of them. For example, you may want to find pages with references to both Clinton and Dole on the same page.
Practically all major search engines support the + symbol as a means of doing a Match All search. These are listed on the Search Features Chart. The chart also shows which search engines will perform a Match All search by default, even if you don't use the + symbol.
See the Search Engine Math page for more specific help on using the + symbol. Some search engine specific notes are below:
AOL Search
By default, AOL Search will look for any sites in its Open Directory information that contain all the words you enter. It will check both the words in the Open Directory listing and the words on the page that the listing leads to.
AOL Search will not check for matches in its Inktomi listings UNLESS there are absolutely no Open Directory listings that match all words. However, if you use AOL Search's advanced search page (see the Search Assistance page) and choose the "On the Web Only" option, then your search will be conducted against only Inktomi's listings.
Exclude
Most major search engines allow you to exclude documents that contain certain words. This is a helpful way to narrow a search.
For example, you may want a page about the philosopher Calvin, not the cartoon character Calvin. By excluding pages that mention Hobbes, the cartoon character's sidekick, you will get better results.
The best way to do this is by using the - command, which is supported by practically all major search engines. These are listed on the Search Features Chart.
See the Search Engine Math page for more specific help on using the - symbol.
Site Search
One of the most powerful features available is the ability to control what sites are included or excluded from a search. For example, imagine you wanted to see all the pages from the Mars Exploration web site run by the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At AltaVista, you could use this command:
host:mars.jpl.nasa.gov
In response, AltaVista would display all the pages it has indexed from the mars.jpl.nasa.gov domain. More about using the site search command to find web pages from a particular web site is described on the Checking Your URL page.
Now imagine you wanted to find all the pages from the Mars Exploration web sites that also mention Venus and Jupiter. You could do that this way:
host:mars.jpl.nasa.gov venus jupiter
That tells AltaVista to list pages with the words "venus" and "jupiter" that are within the Mars Exploration web site.
You can even combine other commands, such as those described on the Search Engine Math page. For instance, look at this example:
host:mars.jpl.nasa.gov -"mars pathfinder"
Here, we are telling AltaVista to list all pages within the Mars Exploration web site that do not contain the exact phrase "mars pathfinder."
Now, imagine you are looking for information about Mars landings but are getting overwhelmed by results from NASA. You can get rid of NASA pages by doing this:
"mars exploration " -host:nasa.gov
In that example, we are looking for the phrase "mars landings" but excluding any pages from sites that end in nasa.gov. That means we will NOT get pages from sites like these
mars.jpl.nasa.gov
spacekids.hq.nasa.gov
cmex.arc.nasa.gov.
We could even decide to see all pages about Mars landing from US educational sites, which end in .edu, like this:
"mars landings" +host:edu
Finally, imagine you live outside the US and want to see results that are predominately from your country. Here's how someone in the UK might search for football (soccer) information:
"football scores" +host:uk
This finds pages that say "football scores" and which are from sites that end in the .uk domain, which is used for UK-based sites.
Search Engine Specific Issues
The examples shown above all use the command that works at AltaVista. The same examples work at Google, FAST Search and some Inktomi-powered search engines, if you use the corresponding site search command that these each offer. The site search command for each of these search engines is listed on the Search Features Chart. The Checking Your URL page provides some additional search engine specific guidance.
Often, search engines that support a site search command also make this possible to do using their advanced search pages. In addition, I'd highly recommend downloading the Google Toolbar. Once you've done this, when visiting any web site, you can use the toolbar's "Search site" button to search within just that web site.
Finally, for search engines that don't offer a site search command, you may find that there is a URL Search command that provides a similar ability.Â
URL Search
Several search engines offer the ability to search within the text of a URL. This is very similar to performing a site search. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines have this capability and the exact command to use. Some additional search engine specific notes are below:
Excite
Excite has a "site" command as explained in the Site Search section, but this command cannot be combined with search terms in an attempt to locate pages on a particular topic from a particular web site or to filter out pages from a particular web site. For example, this query wouldn't work:
mars exploration -site:mars.jpl.nasa.gov
However, you can use the URL command to get a similar result. For instance:
mars exploration -url:mars.jpl.nasa.gov
would work to list pages about "mars exploration" but would remove any that came from the mars.jpl.nasa.gov site. Be aware that when using the URL command in this way, only the exact site listed will be removed. For example, this query:
mars exploration -url:nasa.gov
would remove pages from nasa.gov but still allow pages from mars.jpl.nasa.gov to appear, since that is a different web site.
However, when using the + command, then any sites containing the core domain will be included. In other words, this command:
mars exploration +url:nasa.gov
would bring up pages from any site that has nasa.gov in the URL, such as
mars.jpl.nasa.gov
spacekids.hq.nasa.gov
cmex.arc.nasa.gov.
Google's advanced search page uses the allinurl command for finding URLs that contain certain words, as described more on the Checking Your Listing page. However, it is the undocumented "inurl" command that you should use, if you want to find both web pages with words in the URL and within the pages themselves.
For example, let's say you want to find PDF files about mars exploration. Entering "mars exploration" isn't enough, because that could bring back both HTML and PDF pages. To solve this, you can use the inurl command to specify that URLs must have the word "pdf" in them, which will increase the chances of getting PDF files. Here's both commands, combined:
mars exploration inurl:pdf
If you used the "allinurl" command rather than the "inurl" command, this search wouldn't work.
By the way, the "allinurl" command takes its name because when using it, you are requiring that ALL the words appear IN the URL. In contrast, the inurl command means that ANY of the words you specify should appear.
Google also has a command that lets you narrow your search to find documents in particular formats, such works better than forcing the URL command into this role. The command is filetype:, and you follow it with the extension you want to search for. For instance:
california power crisis filetype:pdf
brings back PDF files that contain the words "california power crisis." In contrast:
california power crisis filetype:asp
brings back Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) files, while
california power crisis filetype:html
brings back ordinary HTML files that end in .html, that contain the words. It will not bring back HTML files the end in .htm, however. Technically, Google considers those to be a different file type, simply because the ending is different.
Link Search
Several search engines offer the ability to search for all the pages linking to a particular page or domain. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines have this capability and the exact command to use. The Measuring Link Popularity page provides some specific examples.
Title Searching
Many of the major search engines allow you to search within the HTML title of a web page. This is the text that appears within the title tag of a document. For example, this page has an HTML title like this:
<title>Power Searching For Anyone</title>
If someone were to do a title search for "power searching," then this page might appear, because those words appear in the HTML title.
The Search Features Chart shows which search engines support title searching using the "title" command, which looks like this:
title:terms
where "terms" are the words you wish to search for in the title. Here are some examples:
title:mars
title:mars landings
title:"mars landings"
In the first example, we're looking for the word "mars" in page titles. In the second example, we're looking for both "mars" and "landings" in titles. In the last example, we're looking for the exact phrase "mars landings" in titles.
Some additional search engine specific notes are below:
Direct Hit
A search within title option is available on the advanced search page but was found not to be working when tested on August 6, 2001.
Google uses the allintitle: command rather than title:, and the command means that documents will have ALL the words you specify in their titles. The intitle: command means that ANY of the words may be present.
HotBot
Title searching, either by using the advanced search page or via the title: command only brings back results from Inktomi (as described below), not from the Open Directory or Direct Hit.
Inktomi
The title command works for single or multiple words within the Inktomi-listings of these services:
HotBot
iWon
MSN Search
The command also does not work with quotation marks around multiple words or the + or - symbol. Instead, to perform operations such as a phrase search within the title, you'll need to go to the advanced search pages of these search engines (iWon doesn't have one). Enter the words you want to find including the search operators that you wish to use. Then find the option to search for words in the page title.
Others
The title command does not work reliably with GoTo. At AOL Search, it only works if you use the advanced search page with the On the Web Only option.
At Yahoo, you must instead use the t: command instead of title: to search through titles.
Several of the search engines which support the title command also allow you to specify a title search using their advanced search pages.
Wildcards (*)
You can search for plurals or variations of words using a wildcard character. It is also a great way to search if you don’t know the spelling of a word.
The * symbol is used as the wildcard symbol at several major search engines, as listed on the Search Features Chart. The format looks like this:
sing* finds singing and sings
theat* finds theater and theatre
Some of the search engines offering wildcard search also support what is called "stemming." That means they will find terms like "singing" even if you only enter "sing." This also means you may not need to use a wildcard symbol. See the Search Assistance page for more information on stemming.
Below are some important additional details about wildcard searching at specific search engines.
AOL Search
At AOL Search, the ? symbol serves as a wildcard and will replace any single character, such as:
s?ng matches sing, sang, song
This only works to find matches in AOL Search's Open Directory information. It does not work to bring back matches from Inktomi-powered listings, as explained further below.
Inktomi
Inktomi has two wildcard commands. The * symbol will match one or more characters, such as:
sing* matches sings, singers, singing
The ? symbol matches any single character, and you can use it more than once. For instance:
s?ng matches sing, sang, song
??ng matches ring, rang, sing, sang and
any other four letter word ending in ng
Both commands only work reliably at iWon, at the time of this writing. They fail to function properly at AOL Search, HotBot, MSN Search or LookSmart to bring up matches from within the Inktomi listings that they use.
They also do not appear to bring up matches in wildcard fashion from any of the other data sets these services use, with the exception of AOL Search (see AOL Search section, above).
Northern Light
Like Inktomi above, Northern Light has two wildcard commands. The * symbol will match one or more characters, while % is used to match just a single character.
Anchor Search
Some search engines allow you to search specifically within the "anchor" or "link" text that appears on a web page. For example, consider this example:
Click Here For The Mars Exploration Web Site
Notice the words "Mars Exploration Web Site" are all contained within the hyperlink? This is the anchor text or the link text.
Search engines that support anchor text searching are listed on the Search Features Chart.
Proximity
Some search engines let you indicate how close words should appear to each other. Most people do not need this type of control. Usually, phrase searching is all you need. If you still feel you need control over proximity, see the NEAR section of the Boolean Searching page.
More Power Search Commands
Several of the major search engines offer additional commands that allow you to search by media type, to search within ALT text or link text, and other types of queries. In particular, these services are notable in offering expanded features:
AltaVista
Inktomi-powered services
Northern Light
Explore the help pages and advanced search forms at each service to better understand the additional options that are available. Also be sure to read the Search Assistance page for information about features designed to help improve searching.
More Resources
Search Features Chart
Designed for searchers, an at-a-glance look at common commands and features.
Search Engine Math
This teaches you the basic commands that are all most people need to improve their searches.
Search Assistance Features
Several search engines offer special search assistance features that many users overlook. This page explains the ones that are particularly useful.
Boolean Searching
A rundown on the search engines that support Boolean searching, and the slight differences between them.
Search Engine Tutorials
Links to articles and web sites that offer help with using search engines.
Search Engine Reviews
Links to reviews about the major search engines, in terms of how effective they are.